| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: and he stooped, peered through the window of that other world, and
beheld the face of its inhabitant wet with streaming tears. Ah!
the man was in pain! And Bob, glancing downward, saw what was the
trouble: the block had been lowered on the foot of that
unfortunate - he was caught alive at the bottom of the sea under
fifteen tons of rock.
That two men should handle a stone so heavy, even swinging in the
scissors, may appear strange to the inexpert. These must bear in
mind the great density of the water of the sea, and the surprising
results of transplantation to that medium. To understand a little
what these are, and how a man's weight, so far from being an
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: and shivered. A long time elapsed, and at length she said
to herself: "He isn't coming."
The door-bell rang as she said it, and she stood up, cold
and trembling. She thought: "Can he imagine there's any use
in coming?" and moved forward to bid the servant say she
could not see him.
The door opened and she saw him standing in the drawing-
room. The room was cold and fireless, and a hard glare fell
from the wall-lights on the shrouded furniture and the white
slips covering the curtains. He looked pale and stern, with
a frown of fatigue between his eyes; and she remembered that
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Madame Aubain lay at the foot of the couch, clasping it with her arms
and uttering groans of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the
right side of the bed. The three candles on the bureau made red blurs,
and the windows were dimmed by the fog outside. The nuns carried
Madame Aubain from the room.
For two nights, Felicite never left the corpse. She would repeat the
same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up, come back
to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the first vigil,
she noticed that the face had taken on a yellow tinge, the lips grew
blue, the nose grew pinched, the eyes were sunken. She kissed them
several times and would not have been greatly astonished had Virginia
A Simple Soul |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: Spider will dine to-day.
What happens next, in an uncertain light, does not lend itself to
accurate observation. It is better to turn to those Garden Spiders
who never leave their web and who hunt mainly in the daytime. The
Banded and the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemaries in
the enclosure, shall show us in broad day-light the innermost
details of the tragedy.
I myself place on the lime-snare a victim of my selecting. Its six
legs are caught without more ado. If the insect raises one of its
tarsi and pulls towards itself, the treacherous thread follows,
unwinds slightly and, without letting go or breaking, yields to the
The Life of the Spider |
